Market challenges of incumbent telecom companies entering Internet-of-Things (IoT) ecosystems and organizational implications : A case study

Abstract: The Internet-of-Things (IoT) brings machine-to-machine communication to a global scale together with new business scenarios and inter-relationships. If compared to previous communication technologies, IoT transforms the traditional value chain and creates a different business ecosystem. In this scenario, incumbent telecom companies are taking the role of technology enablers to enter the market. These companies are trying to find ways to generate new value propositions and to position themselves along the IoT-specific value chain. To do that, incumbents need to overcome a number of external and internal challenges. The purpose of this research is to investigate those challenges from the perspective of an incumbent telecom company via a case study carried out at Ericsson. This Thesis is built on the theoretical foundations of innovation management and business model innovation. The research behind is based on academic literature, opinions from industry experts, market analyses, and qualitative data collected from several interviews and online resources. The outcome from this study remarks some major external and internal challenges faced by incumbents. From the internal perspective, the challenges are related to enable the structures within the company to make possible the development of IoT as a radically new business area. On the external side, the main challenges shift from entering the market and position themselves in the new IoT value chain, to the development of unprecedented relationships, innovative value propositions and a new business paradigm. In order to do that, companies need to understand the unexplored IoT ecosystem, find needs and opportunities via partnerships and develop joint business models. This work provides specific data to complement the scarce literature around the topic of IoT business models and challenges for incumbent companies. It offers practical help to guide managers to understand the nascent IoT market, to define adoption strategies and to find their way through the emerging ecosystems.